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Friday, February 3, 2012

Reprolabels makes G2 come alive!

If there is one thing G2 is not about it is subtlety. It seems like the entire line was devoted to garish colors, odd decorations and down right blatant pronouncements ("Megatron Rules!" comes to mind). However it is this 'extreme' take on Transformers (which was present in many early '90's properties) which makes me enjoy them even more. So when I found out about some G2 Reprolabels for Classics figures I knew there was no way I wasn't going to get them.

Currently Reprolabels carries two G2 upgrade sets for Autobots: Jazz and Volt. Jazz of course uses the recent Reveal the Shield mold of the same character. Volt uses the 2010 Revenge of the Fallen Hubcap figure as a base. Fortunately I already owned Hubcap due to his innate similarity with Volt but I had to purchase another RTS Jazz since I only owned one. Usually Reprolabels makes things pretty easy for their customers; you remove old stickers and apply new ones. Except in this case due to the nature of the difference in the designs I had to remove most of the paint off RTS Jazz with rubbing alcohol. This was my first experience removing paint from a Transformer and although daunting at the beginning I was pretty happy with how he came out.

Before...

...and After

My vintage G2 Jazz is looking pretty weary these days.

The new stickers do a great job invoking that G2 feel.

I'm not as satisfied with Volt, but overall he doesn't look bad.

I never realized how small the laser rods actually were.

I'm always on the lookout for new figures that could be converted to Neo-G2 figures, especially after the Botcon 2010 set. I only have one other right now which is Mindset, so I am hoping for an upgrade to make him look a little less movie-ish.

It is just isopropyl alcohol, we just call it rubbing alcohol I guess cause you rub it on stuff :-)

I did not remove any of the paint on the roof since it is basically just a clear piece of plastic painted white. The set came with a label that specifically covers up the blue stripe on the roof which you can see if you look closely. I think I prefer removing paint now rather than trying to cover it up; if I get the chance again in the future with another set I will definitely go with this method.